Pages

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Decorating above the kitchen cabinets

I love the look of decorations above kitchen cabinets, but we had two major challenges when it came to decorating in our kitchen: 1) our ceiling in our kitchen is not very high, so we only had about 12 inches of space between the tops of our cabinets and the ceiling to work with, and 2) we were working on a tight budget. Rather than giving myself a strict budget to work with, I just took my time and bought pieces whenever I found great deals, and I think it worked out well. It took me about 5 months to purchase all these items. I'll do my best to give you the prices of all my pieces, but since this was completed in my "pre-blog" days, I didn't keep a written record of what I spent.I should probably let you guys know that I am a COMPLETE novice photographer. I have great respect for those of you who know how to work a camera. All my pictures are taken on my iphone, and all my edits are done either in Instagram or picmonkey (you can follow me on Instagram @homeonhiddenoaks). I'm working on getting better at taking photographs and hope to one day upgrade to a real camera, but in the meantime, I hope you'll bear with me as I attempt to bring my home to life for y'all through pictures.

We'll start from the left, and work our way across, shall we? The white pitcher was a wedding gift so technically it was free. However, I know that it was purchased from Target. Next to that is a small brown candle and a light blue lantern. The brown candle was $2 at Walmart, and the blue lantern is a Big Lots find, and it cost me $10. Centered above these cabinets is a small wooden painting featuring topiaries. I found this at a garage sale and instantly fell in love with the adorable scroll border. I think it cost me 50 cents. The white ceramic pot to the right of the picture was free (it came from a storage unit that the owners quit paying for)! Inside the pot is a small piece of greenery that I got from the dollar store. Can you guess what I paid for it? Yup, $1! Continuing to the right, the tall dark blue jar with the cute little handle was a Ross purchase (if you don't have Ross in your area, it's just like TJMaxx or Marshalls). I think I spent $8. Finally, the basket that I laid on it's side is like 15 years old, so I have no idea how much it cost. The champagne bottle inside the basket is from the night we got engaged, and was a gift. It is a sentimental nod to our relationship, and our first night in our home :) All in all for this section, we spent $21.50.

This side of our kitchen offers the most space for above cabinet decorating. Starting in the far left, you'll see three wine bottles that I spray painted white. The wine bottles were old and free, and the spray paint (Rustoleum white satin) costs about $5 at Walmart. These bottles are sitting inside a little bench that I bought at a garage sale for $1. All I did was paint it brown with some paint that I already had in the garage, and turned it upside down. I think it kind of looks like a vintage milk carrier :) Next you'll see a small tan vase, which was also free. This is from the same storage unit where I received the white pot in the previous pictures. The grey lattice lantern is from Ross, and cost $10. The Bon Appetit sign was my biggest splurge, but I felt it was justified because it takes up a lot of space. This was $17 at Home Goods, and was originally red. I painted it with leftover paint from a previous project. All of the white and off white jars, pitchers and teapots that you see grouped together are either from Goodwill or garage sales. I'm a firm believer that white spray paint fixes everything, so that's what I used to spruce these up. I got all of those for only $4! Last but not least is a blue serving tray in the corner. This is also from Home Goods, and cost $12. All in all for this section, we only paid $49.

Last but not least, pictured below is our simplest vignette. Everything pictured here is from Home Goods, except the grapes, which are from the dollar store. I'm not typically a fan of fake fruit, but I think the pop of green adds a nice touch. The small basket was $4.99, and the canisters I honestly can't remember exactly. I think they were like $7 and $9 each. I'd say a good estimate for this vignette is $22.

We decorated above our entire kitchen for just at $90. I think the impact it makes was well worth the cost. What about you? Have you added any budget friendly decor to your home recently?

Thank you Valerie! When I bargain shop (Goodwill and garage sales are my favorite!) I like to pull things off the shelves and create small little vignettes right there in the middle of the store. This helps me get an idea of which pieces work well together BEFORE I pay for them. Keep up the bargain hunting for your own beautiful home!